All the teams who have aspirations to challenge for the title in the Championship will be hoping Arbroath can land an early blow on Dundee United on Friday night.
Even taking my Arbroath hat off, this is a fascinating season-opener.
United have sold out their allocation, it’s on the TV and both teams have had an up and down Viaplay Cup.
We’ve strengthened up front and I’d like to think we have more goals in the team now.
And Jim Goodwin has had to be busy in the transfer market after United went down.
I know Declan Gallagher from our time together at Dundee.
He’ll be a leader at Tannadice.
To sign a player who was a Scotland international quite recently is a great bit of business.
Louis Moult is another impressive signing on paper.
But getting Tony Watt and Steven Fletcher into the same team proved to be a problem for United last season and it’s a challenge for Jim to make sure it isn’t the same with Louis and Tony.
And, of course, United will have to deal with the favourites’ tag – on Friday and every week after it.
Like Dundee last season, they’ve got the biggest budget in the summer and they’ll have the biggest budget in January if they need to strengthen again then.
It’s got the makings of a great start to the season at Gayfield.
Tony Docherty is a guy I’ve got a lot of time for.
I see him out and about in the Ferry and I think it was a breath of fresh air for Dundee to appoint him.
And I also think the signings he’s made have been a breath of fresh air as well.
Dundee have a history of bringing in players from abroad who the fans have loved.
And it’s been nice to see them mix things up this summer rather than stick entirely to the ‘familiar faces’ route.
I’m genuinely excited to see how Tony’s team comes together.
And I can understand why he’s gone for Trevor Carson as a goalie.
After the manager, the keeper is the next one in the spotlight when things go wrong.
You just need to look at United’s struggles last season – if they’d got that position right, they probably wouldn’t have gone down.
Ninth place is the target for Dundee but hopefully this season will be the start of a sustained spell in the top flight and the end of the yo-yo years.
There were the usual shocks in the Viaplay Cup.
Playing competitive football in July is such a leveller and the part-time teams have a great opportunity of causing an upset.
I do think the time is right to have a look at changing the format, though.
For me, it’s still more like pre-season than the real thing.
And is that right for a major national cup competition?
So I’ve got sympathy for Steven MacLean and St Johnstone, who suffered with injuries and signings not being in the door.
Steven will have a learned a lot about his younger players.
And he’ll have his team fired up to put it behind them in the league.
I expect to see a very different St Johnstone over the next few weeks.
